


Epilogue

by sherbertglasses



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 10:19:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9119299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherbertglasses/pseuds/sherbertglasses
Summary: After Darillium, the Doctor reads River's diary.





	

A few days after Darillium, when Nardole was still recovering, the Doctor landed the TARDIS in The Library, moments after his tenth incarnation had left. 

He picked River's diary up from the rail where it had been left. For a moment, he just held it. Wrinkled, creased and well loved. He knew it was over. No more River. Not ever. But part of him hoped that if he didn't open it, didn't confirm it, he might run into her again earlier in her life. But he needed to know. He needed to see their relationship from her perspective. 24 years and a few days later, it still haunted him, what she said on the ship, about him not loving her back. He'd spent those 24 years on Darillium proving to her that that wasn't true. But he needed to see it.

He brought the diary into the TARDIS library, settled into one of the armchairs and opened it. Tears began to silently fall almost immediately, as he read about her traumatizing childhood and how meeting him had saved her from that. How he showed her love that first day, even as she was trying to kill him. She wrote of stories she heard of him as she studied archaeology. He read of every encounter with him. To his surprise, he discovered she'd had more than one dealing with his Eighth self and he hadn't known it was her. He read how she got sadder as she knew she was reaching the end of the book. When he finished, it was confirmed. He would never see River again. He wept.

When he collected himself, he walked over to the most cherished shelf in the TARDIS library and placed the diary between "Memoirs of an Edwardian Adventuress" and several of his 500 year diaries.

River lived on. In the The Library's memory banks and in his hearts forever.


End file.
